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Is CUCAS Study In China Program A Scam? Too Many Expats Say “Yes”.

For the last four years Peter Zheng (his full Chinese name remains unknown at this time) has been soliciting expats in China and abroad to come study in China. Certainly there is nothing wrong nor unethical about this. Whether he charges foreigners $500 or $3,000 for his “Registration Services” is also quite legal if customers are willing to pay this price for someone filling out university application forms. But, it seems Peter relies on massive deception to make his sales and here is what our undercover investigation turned up…

First you must understand that prior to opening up this hustle called CUCAS, Peter was a manager at China’s CERNET which is the government agency responsible for assigning and registering domain names. He worked their several years and as per a recording we obtained Peter was willing to sell .cn and .edu domain names to anyone willing to pay him $7,000 a year. Why would someone want these internet suffixes? Because if you had one, people would falsely believe you were a university or a part of the Chinese government, both of of which equate to credibility in China. As you can see here, Peter is quite proud of himself https://www.linkedin.com/in/zhengty. In China you are admired by Chinese society if you can swindle a foreigner without their knoweldge. This is actually the Chinese definition of the word “clever”.

When he opened up CUCAS he gave himself a domain name that is illegal http://www.CUCAS.edu.cn which deliberately misleads people and prospective clients to believe that his private company is actually a Chinese university when it is nothing more than a private commercial enterprise as we confirmed with SAIC of Beijing (which issues government business licenses) and the Haidian District Tax Authority. This deception is however only the first of many. Peter and his staff lie to foreigners and tell them that application forms to Chinese universities are in Chinese and very complicated and only those with “connections” will get into Chinese Universities. This too is utter bollocks since every university in China has an international department that accepts applications in English, Spanish, and French. The only “connection” you need is the money that pays your tuition.

The next deception is quite a doozy! Peter and his associate advertise on their website that their services are “FREE”. If they were in fact a government entity that would make sense. The truth of the matter is that CUCAS requires all their applicants to pay their sister company hefty service fees of $500 to $5,000 depending upon a) what package is purchased and b) how gullible and naive the buyer may be. The sister company is called “Beijing Chiwest” and guess who owns this company? Peter’s relative! (Zheng Tian Ting) So the “FREE” is absolutely bullshit. To see the connection between the companies look at this old 2010 ad that CUCAS placed on an expat job forum http://www.thebeijinger.com/forum/2010/04/09/cucas-looking-vietnamese-marketing-coordinator-based-vietnam And here is the the web site of Beijing Chi West: http://chiwest.cn which is hosted on the same server as http://Cucas.edu.cn.

Next deception… When prospects are called by skype in America, Canada, the U.K. etc. they are told that the person calling is the “International Admissions Manager” of the CUCAS “agency” yet the entire CUCAS fraud team pictured below are all Chinese. Occasionally when a government official comes by to inspect business licenses or reps from universities want to see his office, Peter will arrange for a few foreign expats to be in the office that day.

More than one CUCAS client has told us that Peter helped them find jobs in China teaching even though they would be working illegally on an “L” or “X” visa. Apparently breaking one more law is no big deal to Peter escpecially since it will be the expat teacher that will be fined deported with a reentry ban and not him!

Moving right along, the next deception is that CUCAS staffers claim they represent only the top 20 Universities in China. Again this is a pile of horse manure. The top universities are Peking University, Tsinghua University, Renmin University, China Academy of Sciences, etc. and only 1 of the 10 universities he cooperates with is in the top 25. The universities that he does represent are those that pay him the highest commissions of 15% – 20%.

Now we get to the best part for Peter. Not only is he collecting 20% commissions from the universities but $500 to $5,000 from the students who applications he is processing. Thus he is collecting at both ends while having the audacity to advertise that he provides a “FREE SERVICE” and that he is promoting a “Cultural Exchange”. We give Peter a “A” for creativity and an “F” for ethics and honesty.

Peter elevates himself within the Chinese community as someone promotes “cultural exchange” between the East and West yet not many CUCAS clients think very highly of Peter once they realize how much of their money actually went into his pockets. Yet Peter loves to give speeches anywhere he is allowed to have a public forum. He uses those opportunities to recruit even more victims for his clever “educational” scheme.

We are bringing this matter to the attention of every University in China as well as the Procuriate’s office and the CCP’s Corruption Bureau in Beijing. Peter has bragged on tape that his “guan xi” is the best and now we will see if that is also yet another lie. You can visit his elaborate web site and read all the shill testimonials and fake “reviews” his former employee informed us about. By the way, Peter wants us all to know that he is friends with the U.S. Ambassador Gary Locke as you can see here. DO you think he told the Ambassador what he really does for a living?

Yes, I was also ripped off by these con artists in 2013 when I was “guaranteed” an enrollment at China Academy of Sciences and if I paid an extra $1,000 I would get a full scholarship. I don’t know why I believed them, but I did. Big mistake. These people are professional fraudsters – beware.